


as if sorry is any consolation

by heartsinhay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Doomed Timelines, Dream Bubbles, F/F, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Red Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:34:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinhay/pseuds/heartsinhay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re filling all your quadrants with me,” she says, “That’s about as bad of a decision as it is creepy, and as creepy as it is actually kind of flattering.”</p><p>“You should be flattered,” you retort, “I mean, alternate timeline yous don’t know how great they’ve got it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	as if sorry is any consolation

You meet a lot of yous.

There’re like, a billion (well, not really, more like fifteen, but you like the word billion, the immense vastness of it, the familiar weight of the 8 on your tongue). You meet yous who never made it past their second sweep and yous who never went god tier and yous who never even set foot on the meteor. You meet like a billion dead yous, and Terezi Pyrope’s killed every one.

Maybe that’s supposed to bother you. You’re basically the best Vriska Serket out there, but you didn’t have an original death. Maybe you’re supposed to feel like, offended about that or something, but instead it feels comfortable. Kind of nice, even: Terezi’s killed you in fifteen different timelines. It’s like she can’t keep her hands off you, or her cane out of your vital organs. You could get used to this, you know?

That’s why, when you ask the latest Vriska you meet how she died and she looks you straight in the eye and says, “Gamzee Makara”, it feels wrong.

 

“It’s not like I want her to kill me or something,” you say, “Because I don’t. It’s just, if I do get killed, I want it to be my sister and not some loser like Gamzee. I mean, she doesn’t get a free pass or anything, but if it happens, it ought to be her. You. Whatever.”

Terezi Pyrope sniffs at you, contemptuously, then turns away.

“Why are you even telling me this?” she asks.

You do a little shuffle on the bench, scooting a tad closer to her, and then swiftly away.

“Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone who knew me,” you say. Terezi doesn’t respond for a while, head turned upwind of you so that not even the slightest whisper of your scent reaches her nostrils.

“Serket,” she says, almost conversationally, “You’ve done a lot of things ever since we met, and all of them have been terrible. What makes you think I want to know you?”

You stand, nearly knocking over the bench.

“Whatever! It’s not like I wanted to talk to a loser like you, anyway. I was just… giving you a chance to apologize. And you didn’t take it, which was shitty of you, and I guess I should’ve expected that, because you’re a loser. I’m leaving, dumbass.”

You move, tossing your hair, but Terezi’s hand whips out and latches onto your wrist.

“Vriska,” she says, “Sit down.”

 

Dreambubbles don’t usually house imps, but sometimes you summon a few, just to keep yourself in shape. It’s your own damn memory, anyway: you can dream whatever the fuck you want, and the Octet has always been useful in situations like this. You dream up a whole host of phantom imps, a black tide that stretches across the chasm between your house’s and Equius’s, and jump into the fray with a loud yell.

Halfway in and you think that maybe you might possibly be a little bit over your head. You’re trapped between two gigantic spider-imps, Mindfang’s sword barely holding pincers away from your head—

And a cane slashes downwards, piercing the spider-imp’s shell. The spider falls and Terezi braces a foot against it to jerk her cane out, and stares you right in the face. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t get the chance: a meowbeast imp pounces from behind and you dash, throwing the Octet and letting the resulting attack (a falling piano, really?) take it out.

You step forward, your back to Terezi’s, and fight. You turn in half-steps when she does, throw the Octet up to create a diversion (fireworks, or a rain of croakbeasts, or giant pencils) when she goes in for a weak spot, sweep low with a sword when she jumps. You step. She steps. You throw. She slices. Eventually, the imps are gone, and all that remains is you and her, back to back, surrounded by piles and piles of fake, useless dream grist.

There is a momentary silence, a temporary peace, and then you break it with a manic laugh.

“Man, that was awesome! Scourge sisters, together again! We make a pretty good team, am I right or am I right?”

Terezi considers you, poised with both hands on her cane, her cape swirling slightly in the wind.

“No.”

 

“I mean, what’s your problem?” you ask Terezi, head dangling off the end of your side of the bench, hair just barely brushing the floor.

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously?”

You jerk up, leaning on your elbows to peer into her face.

“Wow. If you can’t even decipher your own baffling and irrational behavior, what are you even good for?”

You slide sideways so that you’re sitting upright, next to her with your feet firmly on the ground. You don’t quite lean against her—you never do—but the two of you are separated only by a hair’s width of space. Terezi sniffs at you and cuffs you around the head.

“If I wasn’t around, you’d probably start building a mind-controlled ghost army or something equally stupid. Like Alpha you.”

“What really? Man, Alpha me is awesome!”

“Not the point, Serket,” Terezi says, swatting you on the head again. You stay there for a while, her wrapping a noose around a Scalemate and you polishing the Fluorite Octet. The tree above you helpfully dislodges some purple leaves onto both your heads.

“Vriska.”

“Yeah?”

“You want to take this to a pile or something?”

 

Terezi’s inexplicable and baffling behavior example number three hundred and ninety five: she attacks you randomly when you’re just sitting on the phantom deck of Eridan’s ship.

“What the actual fuck, Pyrope?”

You duck a swing of her cane, lunge back to avoid another, backing up until you have enough space to throw the Octet, which flashes in the air and helpfully summons a bucket. You stare at it. Terezi pauses in her assault to avert her nose.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you ask the Octet.

“Oh, that is just sick,” Terezi tells you.

“Whatever,” you say, and – ew—pick the bucket up. You swing it at her and feel it connect with her face, and hit her with it two more times in quick succession. She lunges at you, but you catch her cane in the bucket—gross—and throw both to the side, disarming her, but at the same time disarming yourself. The two of you circle each other for a moment, flexing your fists, light on your feet, then you shrug, because what the hell, and jump.

You knock her down and yank on her hair, kneeing her in the stomach. She hisses at the pain, but snaps her head forward and slams her forehead into yours, using your momentary disorientation to push you towards the side of the ship, intent on trapping you between the wooden wall and her fists. You kick at her as she punches you in the nose, once, twice, before you bite her on the fucking arm and she jerks back, reeling. The next few minutes are a blur of pain and adrenaline, and after a while you end up biting and scrabbling against each other like wrigglers.

Your hands are in Terezi’s hair and her teeth are lodged in your shoulders when a cane descends upon you both with intent, hitting the wood between you so hard that it wobbles for minutes afterward. You look up. Staring down at you is Terezi Pyrope.

“What the hell are you even doing? There’s a sign outside that designates this a neutral zone, you know, and—oh my gog, is that a bucket?”

“She killed all my friends,” says Terezi, defiantly, although she disentangles herself from you and sits up, primly adjusting her hair, “I was bringing her to justice.”

“Wrong me,” you say, and glare, “You know, I always thought you were a loser, but I never thought you’d be this stupid. I mean, you didn’t even try to check!”

“Oh, you’re calling me a loser. I’m not the one who—”

The cane descends on you both again, this time hitting you on the head and her on the hand.

“Let’s try this again,” says Terezi, “By the authority assumed by me in absentia of His Tyranny’s Court, I will stand here and wait until both of you stop trying to kill each other on neutral ground. Neutral boat. Whatever.”

“Ugh,” you say, and flop backwards against the floor. You’re going to be here all day.

 

You do a lot of traveling. It’s basically one of the only things you can do when you’re dead: walk around and explore the memory dreamscapes of other dead people. Today you’re in the Land of Light and Rain, wading knee-deep in multicolored water, when you notice Terezi Pyrope perched on the top of a temple, noticing you noticing her.

It’s the Terezi you fought with. You’re getting good at telling them apart, now: it’s the subtle differences in their stances, voices, the lengths of their hair. You’ve seen her a couple other times. Sometimes she joins you when you’re fighting imaginary imps, but neither of you ever speak. Today, though, she does.

“You’re filling all your quadrants with me,” she says, “That’s about as bad of a decision as it is creepy, and as creepy as it is actually kind of flattering.”

“You should be flattered,” you retort, “I mean, alternate timeline yous don’t know how great they’ve got it.”

“Shut up, I’m monologuing. You ruin everything! Your Aspect should’ve been Ruin, because all you do is wade in and ruin everything for everybody and then try to backtrack, but it never works and you never learn! It’s kind of—“

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not finished yet!” snaps Terezi, “It’s kind of pathetic.”

“Oh.”

“We fight well together,” she offers.

“Yeah, we’re pretty awesome. Well, mostly me, but you’re a decent support.”

“Would you like to go out on a date?”

“A date? With you?”

“Yes, with me, Miss Blueberry Stupid, who else would it—“

“Yeah. I’d like to.”

“Good.”

 

It takes a sweep. More than a sweep. Half a sweep. Whatever; time gets a bit blurry when you’re dead.

It takes a sweep, but finally, you meet Terezi Pyrope. Your Terezi. Your timeline’s Terezi, caped in red cloth with that stupid dragon hood kept down with her hair. You want to say that you’ve pretty much achieved troll serendipity with a bunch of alternate universe versions of her. You want to say that you can’t let go of the memory of her cane, that horrible pain, shock like plunging into cold water. You want to say that you’ve got a black quadrant reserved for her since the day she killed you. You want to say a lot of things. What you do say, instead, is “Hey”.

You think she understands.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/8507.html?thread=2050875#cmt2050875) prompt:  
> Scourge Sisters, any quadrant
> 
> Adelaide - Anberlin  
> Why Can't You See - Saosin  
> This Love (Will Be Your Downfall) - Ellie Goulding


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